"Renewables" includes conventional hydro power and waste fuels. In the first half of 2012 ALL renewables accounted for only 26% German electrical production (did it decrease from your number?). Solar and Wind accounted for a little more than half of that, or 14%.

Net electricity production was used by me, you provide gross production data (10% higher) which include energy demand of the conventional plants (2/3 of the difference) and transmission losses (1/3 of the difference). You could think a little bit more about which makes more sense for our discussion. :-)

If you want to discuss German energy data please use high quality sources like AG Energiebilanzen or the stuff published by the Fraunhofer Institues, otherwise your "With your track record of posting misleading numbers" backfires. :-)

Sorry, Rob S, but this data is not correct.
Make sure hear-say combined with wishfull thinking is not your source of information.
Your postings here are strongly showing this tendency!
Your link shows a first half result - based on what data? Guesstimations I supose.
The atomic power part in the German electricity gros production was for
2010 22.4%
2011 17.7%
2012 16%
Never in the entire history of Germany's electricity production we saw a flat 20%/a or half annum - as shown in the link you provided by someone who provided a provider who ....
The same might be true for the other data you provided via a provider who got from ....
There is no data (or official statistic) concerning electricity energy production in Germany based on quarter or half years.
However there is official statistic material available for consumption:http://www.ag-energiebilanzen.de/viewpage.php?idpage=118&archiv&preview=...
Go to the pdf data sheet " Energieverbrauch in Deutschland Daten fuer das 1.Halbjahr 2012 "
It seems obvious that all your "data" you're spreading here in the economist comment corner is not correct.

The original source of the 2012 data was the BDEW
http://www.bdew.de/internet.nsf/id/5EB21DB62B07D3A9C1257A4C004E9921/$file/Annex_to_the_BDEW_Press_Release.pdf

Is their data wrong? Is the BDEW subject to wishful thinking or hear-say? Do you have data that conflicts theirs? If not, then accept the results and address them, rather than resorting to lame ad hominem attacks.

Almighty, now literacy lessons for Rob S :
" Is their data wrong?"
There is no data. Just guestimation.
The BDEW (linked in your last posting ) clearly says:
" *estimated and rounded (The generation of German power stations of
industry for its own consumption has not been taken into consideration for
this calculation.) "
ESTIMATED.
Not MEASSURED.
As said already: the 'estimation' of 20%atomic power was totally wrong, never in the last couple of years atomic power reached a contribution of 20% per annum (or semi-annum) in the German grid.
Since there is no reference given by the BDEW and they clearly state that they don't KNOW anything about the facts (a rounded estimation!) we stick to the official MEASSURED data.
---------
See AG-Energiebilanzen http://www.ag-energiebilanzen.de/viewpage.php?idpage=1
------------
Spin this thought of wrong data a bit further: no 20% atomic power but maybe only 17% or 18%, that would push renewables further up, wouldn't it?
It's your turn to phantasize further....
" Do you have data that conflicts theirs? "
There is no data, again. Guestimated numbers are no data in the world of physics, economics. In reality that is.
I prefer to stick to meassured data. As most poeple do who what the term 'data' means.And who pay their electricity bills
But that isn't your world....

It seems to me that a previous TE story stated that on one particular day wind farms produced some 22% or more of Germany's electricity needs, but on the following day only 4%. The difference was made-up by conventional power plants.

So it seems that having invested vast sums in wind power, Germany still needs to either (1) maintain their existing power plants as a backup (and the related costs) or (2) import power from other countries, like France, who may have a surplus at that moment.

In a country like Germany with so much government involvement we may never know exactly how much electricity generation really costs. But I do believe that it currently costs the consumer more than twice what it does in the U.S. plus an unknown amount due to government subsidies, loans, and who knows what else.

As for the "net production" numbers, how are they calculated? Does that mask the fact that the conventional power plants must still be available and warm? Are these averages over a year or peak numbers? Theoretical or real?

May I answer for Ulenspiegel:
After stating some non-backed things you are asking your first question
" As for the "net production" numbers, how are they calculated?"
They are not calculated but meassured. Powerplants must register with the Bundesnetzagentur,
seehttp://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/cln_1911/EN/Home/home_node.html;jsession...
who will count the potential input of power plants on a monthly base. And publishes the data
here:http://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/cln_1912/DE/Sachgebiete/ElektrizitaetGas...
The metered energy they are feeding into the grid must be meassured by the grid operator.
There are four of them in Germany who have to give their forecasts to the electricity exchange every 24 hours
herehttp://www.transparency.eex.com/en/Statutory%20Publication%20Requirement...
Click onto
Show all data:
Conventional (≥ 100MW), Wind, Solar
You will find there as well Amprion, the Austrian grid operator working on a similar base.
The grid operators pass their information towards the electricity exchange
herehttp://www.eex.com/en/
-----
You second question:
" Does that mask the fact that the conventional power plants must still be available and warm?"
No. The process is open as you can see. Illegal price fixing can be but is illegal. As on any stock exchange.
The grid operator's duty is to guarantee that there is always enough power in the grid. So yes, powerplants are kept "warm", independantly from the fact there are renewables in the grid or not.
Another problem with the power distribution is the grid itself, you Americans have a very lousy grid, every couple of weeks we read in the news that there are hundreds of thousand without power again.
Which is not the case in Europe but the grid operators are prepared for these cases as well. It is their legal duty.
Your third and forth question is answered.

This is the time when we should stress on usage of renewable energy. This is indispensable in order to avoid any future crisis. The energy crisis sis projected as a big blackout in near future. There are places in the world which has abundance of renewable energy. We have to cultivate solar, wind, hydro etc forms to secure our future.

The problem, Abhishek, is the AVAILABILITY of that energy. The only form of renewable energy available in sufficient concentration to make its recovery economically feasible is hydroelectric energy. That source of energy is highly localized and, for the most part, already exploited. Solar and wind energy, while widely available, are both low in density and require large capital investments to collect it. Moreover, unlike hydro power, or all other forms of energy we use, wind and solar energy are not easily stored and have to be used when produced. The intermittent nature of these energy sources requires additional energy sources (coal? Natural gas? Nuclear?) to be set aside on standby to provide energy when these unreliable sources are unavailable. This need for standby adds even more to the total cost.

@Rob S : Agreed. With a kind of circumstances we are in, we have maximize usage of renewable energy. Be it be wind, sun, hydro or tidal. This is need of the hour. I agree with you that cultivation of such sources of energy requires huge capital investment and ROI is quite low. I feel this is the right time to start and research on this. First step forward is required. I am sure with more research on this field, more and better options will come out.

Yes, there are places in the world which have abundance of renewed energy.
Planet Earth for example, 99 % of the thermal energy used by menkind is coming from the sun. Straightaway at no costs, 24h per day.

A luddite argument, Rob. You ignore all R&D that is taking place, and underestimate human ingenuity.

There is rapid development in the storage capacity of renewable energy, and in the smartening of the grid and linking large areas also improves grid stability. Technologies are also being developed to time our energy use better with smart metering, amongst others.

Since most countries will need considerable time to gear up renewable capacity to a level that requires major change to the infrastructure, it seems highly feasible to develop solutions for the issues you mention.

I have been personally involved in that R&D, and am quite aware of the progress. Technological progress does NOT occur from beating the same, tired 50 year old horse to death, Sense. It comes from innovation in the laboratory. That is where we should be spending money, not decorating people's roofs with useless symbols.

There has been very little actual progress in storage, with the exception of the use of molten salt and thermal solar energy. That technology approximately doubles the capital cost and, as is inevitable, also somewhat lowers overall efficiency.

Why has nobody mentioned nuclear? Europe's shunning of nuclear power (Germany)is the real reason for increase use of coal. Despite such strong investments in wind an solar, they still need to rely on coal for base load energy.

I'm all for renewables (wind and solar), but until there is a way to store this energy , there is no way these sources can provide even half of a country's energy. Nuclear is the only feasible replacement for coal (and gas)since it is the only other fuel that can provide reliable base load power. Unfortunately, well-intentioned but uninformed/unreasonable people have turned against it.

Think about it, would you rather have global warming plus strip mining(coal) and fracking (gas)compared to a miniscule chance of a meltdown (even here, very few, or nobody dies)? I, an environmentalist, choose nuclear. Just look at France(79% nuclear, 9% fossil, 8% hydro, 4% renewable) compared to Germany(18% nuclear, 60% fossil, 4% hydro, 18% renewable); Here, we can clearly see who is the bigger CO2 emitter.

OK, according to serious studies it is stupid to build storage facilities as long as the penetration with renewables is less than 40% in Germany. With almost 30% reneables (net production) and around 9 TWh (1.5%) added production from wind and PV per year it is a save bet, that around 2025 Germany will produce around 45% - 50% electricity with renewables.

The problem of nuclear power plants is that the last generation (see France and Finland) is too expensive and not competitive in comparison to onshore wind.

5000 EUR per kW with 8000 FLH is not better than
1500 EUR per kW with 3000 FLH

Do you really think that France will replace all of their current reactors with new ones when the conditions for wind are excellent?

The lack of ability to store energy requires the use of other generation capacity to provide standby power. The under-utilization of this capacity is an additional cost which is ignored by the advocates of intermittent energy technology. A pile of coal sitting next to an underutilized power plant is the German approach to storage of wind energy.

Nuclear power plants in the US operate with a 95% utilization.

China today is installing US-built nuclear reactors at a cost of $2000/kw. They expect to drive the cost down to $1/kw as they gain experience in building identical reactors.

Again you do not understand what capacity facto means and you do use it in a very strange way.
In principle we have two etrema for our wind power discussion:
A) All turbines work in sync, so overcapacity produces losses and the maimum loss free installation provides with 25% capacity factor 25% of the power of a coal or nuclaer plant. The only chance to improve the loss free situation is to improve capacity factors e.g. to use more offshore wind (>4000 FLH but expensive) or to optimize onshore turbines for more than 3000 FLH.
B) You have many independent sites for wind energy production, these sites are connected by transmission lines. Now high FLH are only nice to have but not longer essential, you can simply overbuild each site with 1/(capacity factor) and you produce no losses.
At the moment we are somewhere between A and B, this can easily been seen if we check maximum wind power and installed wind power: Even in small Germany you only observe 70% of the installed power as maximum power. We would like to come closer to B and, therefore, the obvious strategy is to connect wind capacities from France to Poland and from Norway to Spain (->gain of independent production sites).
Please think in future a little bit more about stuff like capacity factor and its correct usage, could give your contributions a little bit more intellectual depth.

"Capacity factor" is a somewhat arbitrary number, depending entirely on the choice of the rated output of the individual installation. It can be easily improved by reducing the rating. It does not change the total energy delivered, however.

Your "solutions" require even more capital investment. Eventually the consumer has to pay for that investment, either through higher taxes or higher rates. You are battling with a fundamental principal of nature - that an effort to collect and use a product of nature that is in low density require a high capital investment.

The US has more than enough capacity to deliver the electrical energy it needs. Building any generation capacity (wind, solar, nuclear,..) only adds to the cost of electricity. Conversion of coal-fired generators to NG can be justified by reduced pollution and lower operating cost, with a minimal capital investment. Beyond that, investment in new capacity only meets political demands.

Could you please post your source for the cost of production? Also, my EU relatives pay over twice per kWh than we do in California and some EU countries charge even more. How does this affect their standard of living?

In contrast, the Palo Verde power plant in Arizona delivers 29 Twh of electricity per year (2/3 of the capacity of ALL of Germany's wind generation facilities), selling the power for 6 cents/kwh and making a significant profit for its owners.

" Also, my EU relatives pay over twice per kWh than we do in
Again I'll take over to speed up feeding the eager demand for knowledge....

MySetDancer asks:
"Could you please post your source for the cost of production?"

See
eex
(the cheapest makes the hit, these are the costs plus profits)

And
" Also, my EU relatives pay over twice per kWh than we do in California and some EU countries charge even more. How does this affect their standard of living? "

They get older and are better educated. They can afford the prices of the goods they are purchasing,have lesser household debts.Work fewer hours per year.
The cews at the soup kitchens are shorter and the term "poverty draw" doesn't exist.

Judge that yourself, you claim to have relatives in Europe. They might be a better source of knowledge compared to the unknown in the internet.
They might be able to explain you the energy market/-situation as well.
Write a letter, pen and paper are still hadled over there. Over 90% of the Europeans can read and write.

Just another example of Obama's crazy policies to destroy the greatest economy on Eath. The IPCC theory of CO2 causes global warming is NOT proven. What has been proven about the theory is that many of the lead IPCC researchers are charlatans, crooks and cheats. Obviously, Obama supports his brethren.

There was an mini-Ice Age in medieval Europe, after a global warming which allowed homo sapiens to come out of its caves and prosper. Mini Ice-Age which allowed ice speed-skating to develop on the Amsterdam's canals. While merchants travelled in sleighs from Germany and Poland to Sweden over deeply frozen Baltic.

Global warming has started in 1930s with much lower industrial activity than today.

In ca 70 years - will have another cooling cycle.

And what will ecoterrorist propagandists/pseudo-scientists say than about "man-made global Warming"?

And go to the research papers on current hypotheses of AGW. Do any models available predict how CO2 in the atmosphere accounts for the warming trends (or lack thereof)? The answer is that climate science has NO closed form model that accounts for weather trends over the last 150 years. All they have is the observation of imperfect coincidences, and some curve fitting exercises extrapolated to the future. Climate science, today, is not capable of predicting climate trends.

Do any models predict it? I do not know as it's not my area of expertise, although Hansen's original model from the 1980's wasn't that far off, and I expect the more sophisticated models of today are considerably better.

In any case, I take it you also are unable to find even just the one peer-reviewed study that shows an alternative reason for the recent warming?

Meanwhile there are thousands of peer-reviewed studies that show that carbon emissions can explain the recent warming.

Hansen's "model" was a curve fitting exercise that extracted out the required relationship between CO2 concentration and warming effects empirically. First principle calculations, assuming CO2 directly led to warming, underpredicted the warming trend by a factor of three.

The IPCC has accommodated this contradiction by introducing a amplification factor. Climate scientists have hypothesized that the source of the amplification is an increase in water vapor in the atmosphere, driven by increased CO2.

However, to date the models are not adequate to treat the complex relationships between CO2, water vapor, cloud effects,.. Moreover, there is no evidence that water vapor concentrations in the atmosphere has significantly increased.

It has been known for a long time that CO2 has an absorption band in the IR regime, and heats up when exposed to IR radiation. It has also been known for many years that this effect, alone, can not account for past warming trends, or the recent abatement in warming trends.

Because Solyandra's business plan was making climate models and predictions. It has no relationship to the validity or lack thereof of climate predictions.

It cost the US a couple million, which was actually budgeted in the program. Out of the 50+ companies getting loans under that program 3 went bankrupt. Which isn't different from the record of your standard private venture capitalist.

Why you brought the failure of a solar power company in to a thread about the validity in climate models is a mystery. Like bringing up the auto bailout in a conversation about Peak Oil.

WIND POWER is a major US energy source unmentioned in this article. Altogether, 5,403 megawatts of new wind generating capacity were installed in the U.S. in 2012 -- 35.8 percent of all new capacity. It is clean, Co2 neutral & produces good paying american jobs in manufacturing, installation, transportation and maintentance. It's relative cost is still higher than coal or Natural gas but it will be competitive in the very near future as new technology and scale lowers continues to reduce it's cost p/kwh. The benefits are worth supporting. http://www.kcet.org/news/rewire/government/the-renewable-revolution-in-a...

More exaggerated promotional material from the renewable energy advocates.

Energy is NOT measured in megawatts, Wood. It is measured in Mwh. The ability to produce energy is limited by the low capacity factor for wind turbines - typically 20%, as measured in the field under use. So reduce your claims by a factor of 5.

The US consumption of electrical energy has been flat for the last seven years, with no need to spend capital to increase our capacity. The addition of expensive solar and wind generation capacity, using technology imported from China and Europe, only adds to the total cost of electricity, while employing Americans in menial construction jobs.

Import cheap shovels from China instead, and send those workers out into the desert to dig holes and refill them. It will have the same job creation impact, and cost the taxpayer and ratepayer much less.

Wood was quoting PEAK capacity, not capacity. They are two completely different attributes, particularly when you are referring to intermittent power sources. In the case of wind, the capacity is 1/5 of the peak capacity. Renewable energy zealots commonly use the two interchangeably to exaggerate the value of intermittent energy sources. The fact that you assert them to be the same identifies your motives.

The ONLY useful metric to judge the usefulness of an energy supply is AMOUNT of energy it can supply, over some given period of time (other than for one second at noon on a sunny day). It serves you and other promoters to ignore that measure and choose to exaggerate the utility of intermittent energy sources,

you wrote above that energy is measured in MWh. What's the matter with joules, or giga joules, or terra joules, ...?
It seems to me that the watt-hour is a completely unnecessary concept, since 3600 J is identical and simpler.

But on the more substantive point of the difference between energy per unit of time and energy itself, or between peak power production and average power production, of course I agree with you.

Seems to me that the Gen Public is getting played like a fiddle: One day coal is cheap and clean and abundant; the next it's dirty and Nat. Gas is the ticket; then that is to hard to use and store so we're back to oil. Probably a few millionaires have been made in the wind and solar game.
The whole thing seems to be a game of musical chairs with high profits being passed around on some opaque schedule.
One aspect of coal that hasn't been well developed is the by product known as acetylene. This is one powerful gas.

Yes, Ulenspiegel, I (again) have a problem with your numbers. You neglect a factor of 5 or more when you confuse energy production with PEAK POWER outputs for intermittent energy sources.

I often wonder why advocates of the use of intermittent energy sources repeatedly make the same mistake. Is it a lack of education in introductory physics that causes them to confuse energy with peak power? When the same mistake is made, over and over, it raises the suspicion that it is a deliberate one. But perhaps I am being unfair.

The published power numbers (possibly quoted by Ulenspiegel) are NOT "power capacity" they are the rated power capacities of the technologies. In the case of PV the rating refer to a peak output, under a defined set of conditions. In the case of wind, they also refer to power output under an specific set of wind conditions. In both cases those numbers have to be derated by the capacity factors.

The financial trends of US coal stocks show quite clearly how the industry is suffering in America. From their peaks in the spring of 2011, shares in Peabody Energy are down 69 per cent, Arch Coal down by 82 per cent, Alpha Natural Resources down by as much as 89 per cent, and Walter Energy shares have lost 76 per cent in value. Patriot Coal, a spin-off from the Peabody Company, sought bankruptcy protection last July.

Coal’s problem has been the shale revolution which has created a surge in US natural gas supplies that drove prices down to 10-year lows during 2012. Many economists believe, too, that the price of shale should not be directly indexed to the price of oil – shale is being independently drilled, is in abundance in America and, arguably, the consumer should be paying a lot less for shale gas than consumers are currently paying. Generators are being encouraged to burn gas instead of coal and, notably, for the first time, the US produced as much power in 2012 from gas as it did from coal.

But US miners added to the problem with ill-timed takeovers during 2010-11, when Peabody bought Macarthur Coal in Australia, Alpha bought Massey Energy, Arch bought the International Coal Group Consortium, and Walter made acquisition of Canada’s Western Coal – assets which are now worth less than the prices paid for.

The motives behind those mergers and acquisitions appear to have been a general desire by US miners to have increased their holdings of metallurgical or ‘met coal’ used for steelmaking. That is a strategy that has looked questionable from the start as the steel industry has weakened and met coal prices have plunged.

Whilst cheaper coal from surface mines, concentrated in the Powder River basin area of Wyoming are able to compete more productively, there are constraints on the rail network which put limits on how much of that coal can be sold.

Until 2017, at least, the US coal industry looks set to remain in a dire position. Coal’s resurgence in Europe, though, is a reminder that for as long as a large base of coal-fired generation capacity exists and remains in place, the industry should not be counted out too quickly.

The problem we in the US have with reducing our dependence on coal is the irrational coupling of that objective with building solar and wind plants. That solution is incredibly expensive compared to the cost of natural gas generation capacity. It takes at least twenty times the capital to build solar energy generation capacity, compared to natural gas plants. And that completely neglects the reality that the use of solar (or wind) requires the availability of conventional energy generation capacity sitting unused, as a backup.We could cut CO2 generation in half by replacing coal with NG, while replacing half of our coal capacity with wind or solar is an impossibility.

It is true that solar and wind generation are on a per/MW basis much more expensive than natural gas generation (not 20X, as the cost of solar has dropped significantly over the last 3 years, and will continue dropping until it has reached grid parity in places like California and Texas), but keep in mind that fuel is free for the longevity of the project, while natural gas as a fuel must be resupplied at a cost. You are also correct in that supplying half of the countries demand via solar and wind is unobtainable, but this is primarily because both resources are intermittent, meaning that they cannot be regulated and controlled by a market authority to react to changes in market demands. Additionally, it is much more likely that around 20% of capacity be supplied by renewable generation, while nearly 70% could be provided by natural gas.

That said, you are incorrect in your statement "that the use of solar (or wind) requires the availability of conventional energy generation capacity sitting unused, as a backup." This is certainly not that case, as most wind and solar are installed with necessary capacitors to provide enough voltage support to move the power. In the cases where natural gas plants are in the neighborhood to provide this reactive support, they are not sitting idly, unless there are major capacity issues on the transmission lines.

The appropriate measure of relative cost is NOT $ per MW. A MW is not a measure of energy. Solar and wind plants are characterized by their peak POWER output, under best operating conditions. To determine the ability of a electrical generation plant to deliver ENERGY day in and day out over a year the peak power is corrected with a CAPACITY FACTOR. In Europe, capacity factors for wind vary between 15 and 25%. Solar capacity factors inn Europe vary between 15 and 20%. In the American desert solar capacity factors approach 20%. In contrast, a NG generation station has a capacity factor between 90 and 95%.

You are also mistaken about the purpose of capacitors built into wind turbines, wleoja. Their function is NOT to provide power when the wind inevitably dies down. They smooth out the momentary fluctuations in power that are characteristic of wind turbines and would cause havoc with the electrical grid if not eliminated. Other power stations have to sit idle and unused (and still costing money) to back up the wind turbines when the wind abates. If there was a need for their capacity they would be running, and NOT be available for back-up.

Adding renewable energy to the existing energy mix adds only additional capital cost, which has to be paid for by the consumer (or taxpayer), just as the cost of fuel has to be paid for. There is no need for additional off-peak generation capacity. If the AVERAGE cost of a solar generation plant is $4-6/w, that cost has to be covered by charge for the 1.8 kwh of energy it generates in a year. A very modest recovery of capital investment would require a charge of 25 cents/ kwh for that electricity - 10X the base cost for NG-generated power. And that leaves out the cost of having other generators standing unused while we use a politically correct form of energy.

Are you REALLY concerned about global warming, wleioja? Take the money being wasted on expensive solar and wind facilities and invest in much cheaper NG facilities. The coal burning plants can be retired, and a much larger amount of CO2 can be eliminated for the same investment.

You are generally incorrect concerning capacity factors of solar generation throughout the U.S. Perhaps you are using old data, but CF for a solar generating station in California, Texas, or AZ is more closely between 30-35%. Ontario, Canada is closer to 20%, however as efficiencies in engineering coupled with dramatic technological improvements continue, CF will continue to increase. To assume a capacity factor over so general a landscape is the first major mistake when evaluating what and how solar generation (and all intermittent renewables) operate. That said, the renewable landscape when properly evaluated and developed offers great potential, however when it is not, capital costs relative to yearly production can be a significant economic burden to the consumer (taxpayer) as you mentioned.

Next, you misunderstood me regarding how capacitors are used in regards to wind and solar. Capacitors are NOT built into wind but are installed nearby, but ARE built into solar. The purpose (and I will repeat myself) is to provide voltage support to MOVE power. Most natural gas turbines are built with significant reactive power (also called MVARS) which is needed to support voltage (electricity CANNOT flow without proper voltage support). On the other hand, transmission systems become increasingly unstable when voltage levels are too high, and thus many generators are set into the lag to absord reactive power, thus lowering the voltage. This is basic power physics, so feel free to find a formula and do the ARITHMETIC.

Third, I never indicated that solar or wind were more economically viable than natural gas. I only wished to argue that they have a real place in the future landscape of US dynamic resources. To assume, as you do, that we should stop all production of solar and wind, to focus solely on NG as a replacement for coal, is absurd and naive. One of the most important features of a reliable grid is diverse resources. Both as an issue of transmission system viability and national security (don't put all your eggs into one basket?) As you failed to indicate, natural gas prices (at an all time low) will not stay where they are by any means, and will assumingly increase, as demand increases and environmental legislation limits production. Additionally, thanks to the substantial subsidies which have been in place over the last few years, solar power prices (production, development, PV cells, etc) are contininuing to drop at an astonishing rate.

Am I REALLY concerned with global warming? Energy optimization is a matter of careful consideration and analysis. The markets will change dramatically, and the more diverse and efficient the market is, the better (for the environment and the consumers wallets).

Capacity factors are not determined by technological improvements in the solar panels. They can be improved by adding rotational alignment to solar arrays, but that has been already determined to add more cost to the solar farms than is recovered. Virtually all PV solar systems built have static panels.

As somebody trained in the field of electrical engineering, let me try to educate you as to what a capacitor does. It stores energy and then releases it over a period of time, usually measured in milliseconds. Very large capacitors can store energy up to many minutes. or even an hour. They play NO role in "moving" energy. Energy is transmitted by conductors.

Turbines do NOT produce electricity. They spin generators that produce the electricity. Whether those generators are driven by NG turbines, steam turbines, hydroelectric turbines, diesel engines or even wind turbines is completely irrelevant. You are completely confused.

Solar energy NEVER will play a significant role in providing energy unless two problems are solved. First, unlike any other source of energy, solar energy cannot be stored in any practical manner (like a pile of coal) to be used when NEEDED. This storage issue has to be addressed, rather than be ignored.

Second, the power efficiency of solar panels has to be dramatically improved over the 50 year old technology used today. Single crystal silicon solar panels will not be an adequate supplier of energy, no matter how many times you manufacture them. I have devoted a significant fraction of my professional career to this issue, and know the physics intimately. I know of nobody who has worked on this problem who disagrees with me. We are wasting time and money on a dead end technology. People who promote it are ignorant, delusional or operating out of self-interest. Given your comments about capacitors and "NG turbines", I will give you the benefit of doubt and assign you to the first classification.

Cliches such as "diversity" are not answers to economic, environmental and technical problems. Solar energy costs today far more than any alternative. If and when there is a technology that reduces the cost by a factor of ten, then it will be used as an alternative. Until then, we would be much better served by investing money into the research needed to develop that technology.

Your answer to my question about global warming is sufficiently vague to conclude that you are not all that concerned. Building very expensive solar and wind generation capacity is obviously driven by motives unrelated to a strong concern for this problem.

Onshore wind clearly beats NG CC power plants due to the high price of NG in Europe.

Your argument against PV is faulty: As long as I can produce and consume the electricity at a lower price than I am charged by my utility/transmission net owner/government the production price of the utility is meaningless! With 20 cent /kWh electricity price and a high consumption during daytime a PV (15 cent/kWh) makes sense for everybody who can generate without real problems a high self consumption like supermarkets, farmer.....

Conversion of a coal plant to NG costs less than $1/w. The capacity factors are 20% vs 90%, giving NG an capital advantage of 18-27X. What would the cost of NG have to be to recover that extra initial investment in 20 years?

I should have stated earlier that I work for one of the leading solar developers in the U.S. I work daily with engineers much better educated than you, and can say with certainty that your numbers and details are extremely inaccurate. Your link appears to be from 2009. Its 2013 now. I think the disconnect is that I am working on projects that have recently been developed or are in process, and have actual real time information. Nearly all new solar developments in the southwestern United States use new TRACKER technologies, unless far enough north where arradiance issues leave FIXED TILT (this is the proper industry terminology) as a superior choice. I know this because I am developing them. The solar energy industry is moving at an extremely fast pace, and thus I will give you the benefit of the doubt regarding any or all of your statistics (as most older developments were used FIXED TILT).

That said, I believe your "electrical engineering" background has you confused as to what CAPACITORS are in regards to electric power flow and the transmission system. Below you will see a simple quote found on Wikipedia. I suggest you take some time to re-educate yourself. I can tell you don't know what reactive power is, so you might want to consider looking it up first. Just to RE-CLARIFY, capacitors in the power system serve to stabilize voltage, by generating reactive power. Voltage MOVES electricity.

CAPACITORS - "Conventionally, capacitors are considered to generate reactive power and inductors to consume it. If a capacitor and an inductor are placed in parallel, then the currents flowing through the inductor and the capacitor tend to cancel rather than add. This is the fundamental mechanism for controlling the power factor in electric power transmission; capacitors (or inductors) are inserted in a circuit to partially cancel reactive power 'consumed' by the load."

REACTIVE POWER - "Unlike true power, reactive power is not useful power because it is stored in the circuit itself. This power is stored by inductors, because they expand and collapse their magnetic fields in an attempt to keep current constant, and by capacitors, because they charge and discharge in an attempt to keep voltage constant."

VOLTAGE - "Voltage is equal to the work which would have to be done, per unit charge, against a static electric field to move the charge between two points"

Unfortunately the power industry isn't easy to learn from your home computer. I should also have mentioned that I worked for the last few years for a power marketing company as a market dispatcher. That said, after listening to you, it is clear you are relatively intelligent, but poorly informed. It is also clear that you have not worked in any real power industry, and thus haven't been exposed to a proper education.

No need to respond. I think this conversation is pretty well over. I suggest going forward you use updated statistics, before you mislead people.

My expertise is in the fundamentals of the photoelectric effect, specifically as it related to single crystal silicon, and what factors impact efficiency - crystal purity, antireflection coatings.... I have also worked on problems associated with power supply design and delivery of power to high performance integrated circuits (operating on the Ghz regime). I have had nothing to do with the marketing of solar energy, so I defer to your obvious expertise in that field.

The cost I quoted is for a large solar energy installation yet to be built. It is NOT from 2009 (as you likely know). The quoted cost is $6/w. Do you disagree with the quoted cost? It will include SOME tracking capability. Even if it had 100% tracking (and a 24% capacity factor) the effective cost would still be $25/w, or between 15 and 25X the cost of a NG plant.

The FIRST large installation with tracking went into operation last month, in Tucson, AZ. It claims an increase in output of 20%, providing a 24% capacity factor - not even close to the numbers you claimed. Does that increase offset the higher cost and increased mechanical complexity? Thermal solar systems with trough mirrors or tower systems can achieve higher capacity factors, but costs are even higher.

Capacitors store energy. That is ALL they do. Combined with inductors, they provide a more complex function, such as a high pass filter to remove power spikes, or impedance matching. What they do NOT do, contrary to your claim above, is make up for the overall loss of power when wind or sun inevitably abates, reducing output to zero. Solar or wind farms require standby power to fill the need when the sun is setting. Unfortunately, peak power demand also occurs (in summer) when the sun is setting. A reliable power grid requires 100% (+ reserve) conventional power. If peak power demand increases, additional conventional power capacity must be added. Solar farms provide redundant energy capacity, peaking during off-peak time. They only ADD to the capital cost that has to be borne by the rate payer. YOUR livelihood depends critically on your ability to convince the ratepayer and those he elects into office to continue the subsidy of your industry. Without those subsidies, you would have to find a job - as many in your industry already have.

Guest-wleioja wrote:
"... No need to respond. I think this conversation is pretty well over. I suggest going forward you use updated statistics, before you mislead people."
But that would lead to an absolute silence from the (s-)think tanks :), how would these posters make a living then, think about the consequences :)
Here some prices from Europe, they start at 0.45 US $/Watt PV-panel costs.http://www.alma-solarshop.com/en/2-solar-panels
The average factor for installation and grid connection is about 3
Land is frequently available for free (former army training sites, waste dumps, polluted industrial sites, coal and uranium mines and so on).

Solar panels do not deliver electricity to the user. They have to be built into a generation system. Your claim is equivalent to pricing the cost of the generator in a steam generation plant. It is (deliberately?) misleading.

Why not provide the cost of a recent solar energy installation, as I have for a installation now under construction in the American Mohave Desert? The cost was double that of your vague, unsupported assertion.

All land has value, even the Mojave Desert. Have the owner put the land on the market, and the value will be established.

" Solar panels do not deliver electricity to the user. "
Rubbish again.
My PV panels (what's a "solar panel" btw.?! childish language is part of your postings!) are running the circulation pump of my ST system. Straight away, without any converter or grid between. Just 2 cables, plus and minus connected straight to the pump.
You are no electrician, haven't the slightest clue about reality.

While I can not vouch for your numbers, I do believe your reasoning is sound. People who support wind/solar seem to always focus on some kind of theoretical capacity under perfect conditions, and from my experience are unwilling to do the kind of analysis you have presented. Look, I love wind and solar but I can also do the numbers and nat gas comes out on top every time. Perhaps in the future the real costs will change, but not for now.

I understand it.
My comments are a challenge to the orthodoxy of renewable energy. Any challenge to religious orthodoxy is met with anger and personal attacks. It is a reflection of the frustration in dealing with facts.

It is ironic that due to the over hyped European concerns over fracking they actually damage the environment by making coal the next best thing to use. If European politicians were serious about the environment then fracking would be promoted immediatedly.

It is better to let amis do their thing, see where they fail and do it better next. IT has always worked for the ones that do it after the technology matured. This is one factor - another is that in the USA nobody is looking really at possible damage that can be done to property of others as long as profit is directly available. I do not mean that profit is bad only that not everything that is possible must become reality. It is also true that modern coal power stations are much cleaner than the old ones - how many modern coal power stations does US really have or intend to build? Next thing is the clean factor - gas is clean because while being burnt it gives water and co2 - this is not true for coal where exhaust must be cleaned up and dust that is then collected is not so nice. This indeed makes coal nastier but how much I am not sure - somehow we must ensure that the energy is produced in sufficient quantities for us to live. This means more effective and cleaner energy sources as well as intelligent grid as well as more efficient technology that is using electricity as well as reducing its consumption by insulation of homes etc. as well as local production of energy (block generators - yes I know that is a communist invention after all used mostly in EUorpe is it not?)etc. We probably need to find ways with fusion and part ways with fission too unless we seriously consider what to do with waste. Seems to me a lots of issues US citizens are more than happy to just forget about and wait for invisible hand of the market to seriously f.up.

Something not mentioned in the article is that, thanks to a flat economy and extensive installation of renewable generation, Europe has already met its 2020 goal for CO2 reduction that was set only 6 years ago.

The decrease is almost entirely due to a DECREASE in the generation of electricity. Generation has dropped 3% since 2008, while generation from wind and solar has only increased from 5% to 6% of the total mix.

Mike is counting on an even deeper economic slump to achieve a greater reduction in CO2 emission.

Rob, the only alternative to what you call "economic slump" is eternal growth, which is neither desirable or possible. The reduction in European electrical generation is a good thing. So is its increasing proportion of renewable generation.

Yes, I called it a "slump". The many who lost their jobs and their savings have a much stronger description of the economic trends in Europe and the rest of the world over the last five years. I'm guessing that you were unaffected, which would explain your insensitivity to this problem.

Economic growth is desirable for those who need a job. Even those who depend on the government to support them in some manner need to have others working and paying enough taxes to support them. What is REALLY undesirable and unsustainable is the continued expansion of our debt and the dependence on foreign countries to support our debt.

Reduction in electrical generation has been accomplished, in part, through conservation. This has had a far greater impact on reduction in CO2 emission than the negligible amount of energy produced by solar or wind energy. Conversion to NG from coal has also had a much greater impact. The effect would be even larger if the money wasted on costly solar and wind systems would have been spent on NG conversion.

Solar farms are today's answer to the desire to build beautiful cathedrals to honor a god - the Sun God in this case. This goes counter to the First Amendment prohibition of our government getting into the religion business, but they feel it is more important to satisfy your demands for these edifices.

Your argument is wrong for Germany, despite higher industrial output and all time high of the workforce the generation of electricity is constant and was achieved with lower CO2 output. Renewables already provide almost 30% of the net production and gain 1.5% per year allone from PV and wind.

Aperently you have a severe literacy problem:
Where in this Bloomberg article it states that there are 23 new coal power plants are being planned ?
That is what you wrote, obviously badly informed:
"And the plans to build 23 new coal-fired power plants?"
If Bloomberg says:
" Merkel’s government wants utilities to build 10,000 megawatts of coal- and gas-fired generators this decade to replace older, dirtier generators and underpin a growing share for wind turbines and solar panels. "
then this doesn't mean there are plans.
It expresses wishfull thinking. The Lady is a physician, I can imagine she can build a powerplant or 23 of them herself.
Out of question that anybody in Germany can be forced by a politician to build anything. Let alone powerplants.
Learn to read, back to school I'd say.
Your media competence seems to be rock-bottom to me.

I hope that western states (California, Oregon, Washington) write regulations to prohibit the export of coal. Fortunately California's governor Jerry Brown is an environmental leader, and so is Washington's new governor Jay Inslee.

We should ban the export of coal because coal is equally dangerous to the climate regardless of where it is burned. To simply ban coal mining in the US is not feasible due to our electric system's reliance on it, although we are weaning ourselves off of it. But there is currently no major coal export industry in the US, and we do not want to start one. It is time to kill King Coal.

"We should ban the export of coal because coal is equally dangerous to the climate regardless of where it is burned".

I don't know why this blindingly obvious thing is not more widely discussed. There is no credible reason why the EPA, which imposes severe (and legitimate) restrictions on coal use in the US, should not also have the authority to ban US coal exports as an integral part of its responsibility to protect the American environment.

Republicans in Congress are why. Their collective brain would explode were the EPA to do that (if they have the legal right to do it, and I don't know that they do have the ability to regulate international commerce).

West coast states banning the export of coal may be blindingly obvious, but it is not constitutional. State 1 can't prevent State 2 from shipping its legal product across State 1 on the way to an export market. There's something called the interstate commerce clause. You can make it somewhat difficult and expensive with regulations, but those regulations can't specify coal; they would have to apply to all exports. In practice what you're suggesting can't be done by another state, and probably not by the federal government either. It's a free country, at least for the moment.

It would only be regulation of American commerce that adversly affected American air quality. The EPA already does that extensively domestically. It has the power (and apparent current policy) to put US coal generation out of business. Why wouldn't extending that policy to US coal exports not be part of the EPA's existing remit of protecting the US environment?

The Federal government unilaterally (and rightly) restricts exports of all kinds of things. These are in the form of blanket bans and specific restrictions to selected countries. Try exporting centrifuges made in Ohio to Iran and see how much "freedom" you have. Banning coal exports to filthy, polluting Chinese plants easily fits into the same category of national interest.

You're confusing interstate commerce for international commerce. There is nothing in the US Constitution that bars Oregon (or any other US state) from blocking an international coal export facility within their jurisdiction.

The constitution does, however, bar impediments to interstate commerce (as in between states within the USA). Colorado, for example, must allow shipments of Wyoming coal to transit Colorado on its way to New Mexico. Coal producing West Virgina, likewise, could not ban imports of cheaper Wyoming coal.

Thanks for the informative article. I find it very ironic that Europe is actually burning more coal but than again maybe they will seen to be the wiser if in 10 years we do find fracking is creating environmental havoc below. I hope not though.

"Meanwhile in Europe, which likes to see itself as a world leader on climate, they are using more and more of the stuff" end of paragraph 5.

Just saying, but I don't think I am the one having a problem reading here. Yes, even we lowly farmers can read.

Eurostat does show that hard coal consumption has been on the rise since 2009. So the Economist's statement is backed by data. I do agree however that this is only a small slice of the whole picture because the rest of the chart does shows a drastic decrease in coal consumption over the last few decades.

Obviously I somehow hit a nerve so this must be an important issue to you. I do feel like I have a better understanding of the matter after your point about the decades of consumption because it does paint a more complete picture of the facts. So thanks for that at least.

Well, Farmer2010, we have to read in context and make complete quotes.
The article is about American coal,I use your quote with the prefix:
" But things are not quite that simple. In America coal is indeed being burned less and less—but not principally thanks to climate policy, of which America has relatively little. Meanwhile in Europe, which likes to see itself as a world leader on climate, they are using more and more of the stuff (see article). "
Of the American stuff.
They might import more US-American coal in Europe but they might not use more coal as such.
Just a different source due to price reasons.
A lot of coal mining capacity can be kept at a low profit/margin operation for a while. But then it has to close down. Maintenance costs for mining machinery and transport, opening of new mines costs investor's money. If they see greener fields somewhere else the mines won't be operated.
The last hard coal mine in Germany(Saarland) closed in December 2012.
So yes, they are propably importing now more coal. But they might not be using more of it.
We will see what future statistics show.

I am not sure how the "complete quote" changes the main idea of what I said especially since I have clearly outlined the statistical accuracy/lack of complete picture anyway. You could infer either interpretation but I think mine is what most people would come away thinking was said. I guess that would be for the author to clarify.

The truth is the Europeans are using more coal in general and more American coal. Obviously, Europe has had more progressive policies in regards to CO2 emissions through energy policy for some time. What I think is interesting is that there is still a price at which Europeans will trade off some environmental concerns for cheaper energy. In the States that trade-off comes at a much lower price. Although that might be changing some. We had a fairly large wind farm development about 10 miles from where I live and there are others that have come in the last 5 years around the state. These do come only with large federal payments to make them economically viable against cheaper sources. So tax payers are paying more for their energy and those same tax payers voted Obama in for another term who is the main backer. Hopefully, renewable technology will continue to get better so there is less of a trade-off in the future. In the meantime I do think the West is heading in the right direction when it comes to energy policy. Hopefully better technology will accelerate this trend.

Wyoming currently produces upwards of 50 coal trains a day, at about 100 cars each, and 100 tons per car. That's half a million tons of coal a day. The infrastructure is already there to mine and load that much coal. The trick to sending it to China is to get the trains to the west coast and get the coal loaded onto ships. The infrastructure that is needed is actually rail lines, port facilities, and cargo ships, more than mining or loading facilities in Wyoming.

The idea of Obama making policy by fiat should cause people in a democracy to think. Didn't we create a democracy to *avoid* that?

Natural gas was below production cost for a while (and may be still). If I ran a power company, I'd be buying as much of the in-ground supply as people were willing to sell.

Oh, my, my, you still get China's pollution, what a pity, or what a pathetic statement. You are responsible for the planet's pollution in the first place. China's pollution / head of population is still a fraction of yours.

North America possesses all five energy sources in abundance. Europe, on the other hand, must import them at great expense. Germany, for example, pays Putin five times as much as the American gas price.

North America also has a young population and higher birth rate.
Europe has a growing number of seniors and declining birth rates.

"Germany, for example, pays Putin five times as much as the American gas price."
++++

Notice that politically expendient Chancellor Merkel reversed herself (hoping for Green votes) and ordered a shut-down of all German atomic power plants; making Germany even more vulnerable to KGB gen. Putin's blackmail.

In a political continuum focused on job creation, how does coal fare? Are there enough jobs to warrant more political clout, or is the whole process so efficient that it in fact destroys jobs at the margin? Do West Virginia and Wyoming, e.g., have the clout to override larger concerns about threats to health?

Given coal's centrality to our energy picture, running this kind of cost/benefit analysis would probably be as meaningful as running a cost/benefit analysis of the ocean: we haven't really focused on its replacement costs by technologies such as fusion etc., and rely more on the serendipity of mucking up the subsoil in search of cheap shale.

A Fusion reactor that generates more energy that it absorbs is currently being built. It would have already been built if so much money hadnt been wasted on the International Space Station and politics hadnt delayed WHERE it was built for years.

Fusion is the best hope we have for the future of energy and unlike Thorium it produces very little waste.